On The Bright Side…

Tracey is a firm believer there’s usually a bright side to any situation.

Which, given Miss5 had just accidentally sack whacked me on the beach, I was having difficulty in reconciling with reality.

“Oaf,” I muttered miserably, doubling over slightly even before my brain was able to reveal to me its judged pain score out of ten. Historically, where nuts are concerned, I’ve learned you’re better off expecting the worst and assuming the position.

In this instance, however, I’d been lucky. ’twas a graze. A nudge in the wrong direction, so to speak, but I wasn’t pushed off my feet. There was a sensation best described as ‘hey, careful what you’re doing out there’ from within my trunks but otherwise no sustained damage.

I decided to pass the message on.

This was the first of a couple of rookie mistakes which I came to regret less than thirty seconds later.

“Watch it,” I said to Miss5 as I unfurled from my standing fetal position. “That nearly hurt a lot. Daddy’s a bit sensitive in that area.”

My second mistake was allowing myself to be distracted when I glanced over at Tracey for support and seeing, instead, her turn away from me chuckling.

Since we’ve decided to stop making babies and I’ve had the snip I’ve noticed my wife has been a lot less militant about things like tight underwear and me keeping my iPhone out of my jean’s front pockets.

Unfortunately, Miss5 had seen her Mum snickering too and took this to mean she had been hilarious.

And, of course, everyone likes to retell a joke if it gets a good reaction.

I turned my attention back to Miss5 just as her fist slammed into my crotch. This was no glancing blow. The message which arrived to my brain as I bent over face first into the sand was TEN! TEN! TEN!

And you’d think, doing a hissing armadillo impersonation through a mouthful of Rosebud Beach, there could be no bright side brought into this sort of situation, especially as Tracey wasn’t even attempting to hide how entertained she was.

But you’d be wrong.

“Stop….laughing,” I tried to insist in what sounded to me like undecipherable constipated grunts, while Miss5 seemed to be dancing around collecting high fives from her siblings. They subsequently claimed to be signalling for her to stop but I have my doubts.

“You can’t blame me for laughing,” Tracey insisted a short time later as the squirming lessened and I slowly uncoiled myself. Her facial expression finally resembled something verging on sympathetic but her voice still betrayed her amusement. And then she finished off by saying something which brought a smile to my face about six hours earlier than I’d have thought possible. “I mean, what do you want me to do? Kiss it better?”